Why your Business needs Speech LLMs for Real-time Efficiency
Learn what is Speech LLM, how it works, and why it's crucial for improving real-time customer conversations and enhancing business communication and efficiency.
- Dec 03 2024
You’re probably familiar with how speech processing typically works. First, automatic speech recognition (ASR) converts your spoken words into text, then natural language processing (NLP) is used to understand its meaning and finally text to speech (TTS) turns the response back into speech. While this multi step approach works, it introduces latency leading to slower interactions. There is a small but noticeable lag before you get response.
Speech LLMs change this for you. They combine ASR & NLP into a single system so you get more efficient processing, with under 1 sec response times. Now, let us see how Speech LLMs work and they can benefit your business.
What is Speech LLM and how it works?
Cascading models (which first turn your speech into text and then convert it back into speech) have some problems. They can lose important information along the way, which leads to mistakes & errors.
For example, ‘The weather is cold today’ is processed as ‘The weather is gold today’ due to small difference in pronunciations.
Also because each step takes time, it causes delays in your communication. Which is why end-to-end models like speech-llm, that process speech directly are much more efficient for you & your business. They reduce errors & delays, giving you faster & more accurate responses.
SpeechLLMs are built to understand and generate speech directly without the need to convert it into text first. So that speech to speech llm can understand audio better & think more deeply about what we are saying.
Here is how it works:
- Speech Encoder: The first step is when the system listens to your voice. The speech encoder take your spoken words & turns them into a set of numbers (called vector representations) that the LLM can understand, via modality adapter. Some what like translating your voice into a format the LLM can work with.
- Large Language Model (LLM): Next the LLM uses those vector representations to think about what you said, figure out meaning & come up with response. It is like it is reasoning and generating a reply based on your speech, just like a conversation with a person.
- Vocoder: Finally the vocoder takes the LLMs text based response and turns it back into natural sounding speech that you can hear. Making sure LLM does not just give you text, it speaks to you in a way that feels real & fluid.
To put it briefly, SpeechLLMs or llm speech to text allow the system to listen to you, understand you & respond more effectively, all in real-time and without extra steps.
These are the Input-Output modes of Speech LLMs
Speech LLMs or llm speech to text can handle different types of input & output, making them flexible for various tasks. Here is how they work in different modes:
- Speech to Text (S2T): In this mode, the system listen to your voice and converts it directly into text. It is great for simple transcription tasks like turning spoken words into written text. However this mode only focuses on transcribing the speech, limiting the capabilities to basic tasks.
- Speech & Text to Text (ST2T): Combines both spoken words and written instructions. It is useful when you want to give the system mix of speech & text to process. For eg., you can speak your query & provide additional text instructions & the system will handle both at the same time, making it ideal for more complex tasks and applications.
- Speech & Text to Speech & Text (ST2ST): Probably the most advanced mode allowing the system to not just to understand your spoken input but also reply back to you with both speech & text. It enables smooth, interactive conversations where you can talk to the system and it can respond verbally or in writing, enabling more engaging user experience.
Continuous sequence modeling
Recent advancements in Speechllms have introduced something called continuous sequence modeling. Instead of waiting for speech to stop before processing it, this method allow the system to continuously process the audio as it come in. It takes the sound waves and turns them into easy-to-understand data right away without needing to wait for “stop” signal from you.
With that in mind continuous processing allows for faster real time tasks like transcription or voice based interactions that happen without interruptions. So, whether you need to transcribe an ongoing conversation or have an interactive voice response system, continuous sequence modeling helps make everything more seamless and efficient. It’s perfect for businesses like yours, where quick & continuous responses are KEY.
What are the real time applications of Speech LLM in business?
Real-time Customer Support
Instead of your customers having to wait on hold or navigate through complicated menus, they can simply speak to a virtual assistant that understands them in real time. So Speech LLMs can completely transform how you provide customer support.
Whether they are asking about account balance, needing help with their transaction or needing answer to common questions, Speech LLMs process their request instantly. This means no more long wait times or frustrating back and forths, leading to much better CX.
Agent Efficiency
Your contact center operations & your agents can greatly benefits from Speech LLMs. With it, your agents no longer need to take notes during calls or worry about missing key information. Speech LLMs can transcribe calls in real time, giving your agents immediate access to everything that has been said.
It can also highlight important details, summarize the conversation & even suggest the next best action. So your agents respond quickly & accurately, providing better service with less effort. By improving your contact center’s efficiency, you can reduce call handling times, improve customer satisfaction and give your team the tools they need to be more productive.
Better digital Sales
As your sales team interacts with customers, speech-augmented large language models analyzes what is being said and can automatically suggest the best products or solutions based on the conversation. Speech-augmented large language models also provides instant answers to questions, allowing your team to focus on closing deals rather than hunting for information.
With Speech LLMs, you can personalize every interaction & guide the conversation in a way that’s most likely to lead to a sale. So that your sales process becomes quicker, smoother and more successful, helping you drive more revenue and build stronger customer relationships.
Multilingual customer interaction
When your business grows, you may find yourself serving customers from all over the world. Language should not be a barrier to providing great service. With SpeechLLMs, you can offer real-time translation, allowing you to communicate with your customers in their preferred language.
And this ensures your business is more accessible to a global audience, offering a smoother, more personalized experience. Whether you are handling customer inquiries or supporting international clients, SpeechLLMs ensure that language difference don’t stand in the way of delivering excellent service. This opens up new opportunities for you to expand your reach & enhance customer satisfaction, no matter where they’re located.
Reduced operational costs with Speech-llm
Speech-to-speech llms operate efficiently around the clock. Meaning they can handle customer interactions 24/7 without requiring the break or shifts. Even during the peak hours or outside of regular business hours, without the need for the additional overtime or night shifts. Your cost savings don’t stop with reduced labor cost.
With Speech llms, you can also streamline operational workflows, reduce the need for physical contact centers & minimize errors caused by human agents, all of which can contributes to lower operational expenses. In the long run these savings can be reinvested in other areas of your business, driving further growth and innovation.
Floatbot.AI
Boost your contact center operations with Voice AI Agents powered by Speech LLMs via Floatbot.AI. Achieve frictionless conversations with less than 1 second latency. By combining ASR and NLP, you can make conversations faster and smoother. Eliminate delays and provide quick, real time responses without any wait.